The fine seems so small in comparison to the breadth of the hack, but they've already lost millions trying to fix it. But they should be losing millions more. In no way was any of this acceptable. Punish them hard from all sides.

While I appreciate the symbolic value of the fine, the actual sums discussed are insulting to the people whose accounts got hacked.

"SCE disagrees with the ruling and is planning an appeal," I'm a bit curious as to how they will manage to explain how the PSN managed to get compromised through known security flows without painting Sony as either totally incompetent or not giving the network the necessary investments.

So Sony sell a product advertised as having certain functionality (other OS), then remove that feature after sale via a firmware update, then sue a teenage customer who has the gumption to restore the functionality he paid for, then get hacked because of that, losing millions of passwords and credit card numbers all because they were too arrogant to allow homebrew games and too cheap/lazy to secure their servers properly.

And now they'll have to send an intern to reach behind the couch to gather the change to pay this "fine"...

Sigh. Low fines like this are meaningless. Greanted, this fine is just one nation, and is in addition to manditory credit offerings per effected client Sony had to pay for, let alone concessions to developers for giving away some games free to placate consumers in many markets, but it;s still appaulingly low.

Any fine for such a breech of trust should never be less than $1 per user who's bank info or SSN was leaked, and $0.25 for each name/address or name/username set released. That small fine needs to be in addition to other mantitory costs, and full liability for costs incurrect by effected users if credit protection leaves them with any dedictibles to pay. Of the 77m users, not all had card info stolen, and clearly not all of them live in the nation issuing this fine so it needs to be proportional, but we shoudl be looking here at something along the lines of not less than $25 in expenses inclusive of fines per effected user, of something into the billions on this scale anyway (of which this fine and expenses for users in that nation are but a small portion).

When costs are guaranteed to be that high for non-compliance, literally bankrupting potential costs, it becomes exceedingly easy for companies to simply "spare no expense" and make it happen. I have many family members effected by SC's Revenue Department failure to encrypt their accounts properly, somehting the state received a whopping $50K bid to fix, and they're only providing 1 year of credit monitoring (on ONE of the 3 services), no cost coverages, and that's costing them well in excess of $1m, and now they have to upgrade the suystem anyway. In large scale systems, it;s not an issue of if, it;s an issue of WHEN you'll lose control of that data. Standards need to be strictly enforced, and companies shold be threatened with being forcibly disconnected if they failt to continually meet their audit requirements for data security.

Yes, it;s still possible they could get hacked anyway, and that would help them avouid the FINE (not the other costs), but maybe it will also encourage them to not even store data they don't explicitly NEED to service toyr account. Passwords get stolen all the time as well, but if that password is not tied to purchasing power, or tyour identity, and you don;t use the same password for other services, you have no real risk or loss if all they steal is your password and username, so long as there's a process to get it back (and since you can prove your serial number, or other identifying info about your machine, without having to prove your personal identity, there's an easy way for Sony to make that work). Now, if you;re a dumbass who uses the same account and passwords and pin everywhere, well, you;ve been told over and over and over not to do that, so that's YOUR fault, not sony's if you get hacked. Sony is liable here because they had credit card and other info, stored UNencrypted, against the law, but if they didn;t, they would not vene be facing anything other than a PR issue here.

So Sony sell a product advertised as having certain functionality (other OS), then remove that feature after sale via a firmware update, then sue a teenage customer who has the gumption to restore the functionality he paid for, then get hacked because of that, losing millions of passwords and credit card numbers all because they were too arrogant to allow homebrew games and too cheap/lazy to secure their servers properly.

And now they'll have to send an intern to reach behind the couch to gather the change to pay this "fine"...

OH THE HUMANITY!

Unfortuinately, "Other OS" was never an "advertized" feture and the court agreed, no matter how much we feel robbed. Also, the guy who restored it didn't just restore it, he shared copy protected and proprietary security information and a device flaw, which itself is VERY MUCH against the law in the process of instructing others to do the same.

Sony did get burned for their failure. Though i do think the fine is too small (even considdering it;s only one nation with a small relative population vs Sony Online's 77m total users efgfected), they did spend a metric ton -hundreds of millions - on credit protection, lost even more in stock value, and lost lots of consumers. Though i think "computer entertainment systems" shoudl all be required by law to allow 3rd party software (at this point they're not consoles anymore, they're computers capable of running alternate OS, which is a key reason Sony REMOVED that feature, because if they left it, they would lsoe exclusivity on game titles, and thus the whole business model of selling consoles below cost and making up for it in title sales would entirely fall apart), you can't legislate for them to do that after the fact.

The only really sad thing here is Sony was not in advance already subject to regulatory requirements like any bank, insurance company, hospital, etc already were.

It's a minor fine, but I'm not sure it won't have the intended effect. Sony knows another cock-up like this could cost them again -- and potentially more. This plus the bad press that followed the breach will hopefully be enough to get Sony to shore up its security.

The fine seems so small in comparison to the breadth of the hack, but they've already lost millions trying to fix it. But they should be losing millions more. In no way was any of this acceptable. Punish them hard from all sides.

For Sony to be singled out for a fine because it's network was hacked I think is unfair.

According to Computerworld, in 2011 90% of US companies in a survey reported that their networks had been hacked.

Quote:

In a recent survey (download PDF) of 583 U.S companies conducted by Ponemon Research on behalf of Juniper Networks, 90% of the respondents said their organizations' computers had been breached at least once by hackers over the past 12 months.

The loss in sales, bad press and the effect on the customers dwarfs this number I'm sure. It's more like a kick to the gut when they're already down... It's a waste of tax money. (i.e. this fine does not motivate change, but public reaction does)

*edit*

Wow, so much hate. Lots of anti-Sony sentiment here. My hyperbole of tax-money-waste might've gone too far; if laws were broken then they should be held accountable, but it seems this is more of a 'shape up' slap on the wrist. Nevertheless, the negativity they created by not having better security far outweighs this fine. Bash on.

Wow,half a cent(roughly) per compromised account... that seems just a tad insulting,don't ya agree?

Well this is UK jurisdiction only, so if it makes you feel better, the courts think the security of your identity is worth at LEAST a few pennies / pence :x

I'll see how the courts value my privacy when (if) the Irish courts decide Sony deserve a slap on the wrist from them too But seriously, I think that the fines for such leaks ought to be more substantial than ^ (let's start by a bare minimum of 1Euro per affected person),because only that will compel other firms to actually divert some real resources to their IT departments to avert such disasters,or at least mitigate them, rather than funneling (a lot more of) them later into their legal (to fight such lawsuits) and their PR(to do damage control) departments.

Nobody that was affected by the hack is getting any money from this fine, so why does it even matter how much it was other than to extract revenge on Sony for their "wrong-doing"?

Sony will have to prove to customers that their network is secure and safe to use as we move into the PS4 generation of gaming consoles. Most likely Sony has built a strong security analysis team since the hack and will continue to focus on security for the foreseeable future in effort to regain the trust of those who are concerned about a replay of the 2011 hack.

I have no worries of purchasing a PS4 and carrying on with my current PSN account on my PS3.

So Sony sell a product advertised as having certain functionality (other OS), then remove that feature after sale via a firmware update...

Unfortuinately, "Other OS" was never an "advertized" feture and the court agreed, no matter how much we feel robbed. Also, the guy who restored it didn't just restore it, he shared copy protected and proprietary security information and a device flaw, which itself is VERY MUCH against the law in the process of instructing others to do the same.

Sonan wrote:

Other OS was never an advertised feature.

Sophistry at it's lowest...

The ability to easily move your purchased games to another console in the event of a hardware failure is not an "advertised feature" of Xbox 360s, you will not find a single piece of marketing that explicitly mentions it. Would that make it ok remove that functionality overnight? Just 'cause it doesn't overtly appear on marketing materials doesn't mean that it isn't one of the reasons people buy the console, as the same process on the Wii is excruciating if Ars' own Kyle Orland's recent articles are anything to go by.

But really, it wouldn't have been that big a deal if they had simply banned all "other OS-ified" consoles from their network (until restored to a stock configuration) and/or did that with new consoles from then on. But the fact that they covertly disabled an offline feature, from everyone's console, with no announcement or warning, just screams of hubris towards those who made them rich.

If you rented the hardware, they may have had a right to covertly cripple it later, but you didn't rent it, you bought it, in which case they need to alert you that they plan to remotely cripple it on a whim.

If you rented the hardware, they may have had a right to covertly cripple it later, but you didn't rent it, you bought it, in which case they need to alert you that they plan to remotely cripple it on a whim.

Are you saying Sony remotely wiped the Linux feature from PS3's? Because that is not how it went down.

You had to download and install a firmware update that removed the feature. If you wanted to keep that feature you could leave your PlayStation off the Playstation Network and keep it with outdated firmware.

I understand the reason for people being upset. It's totally Sony's issue. However, I consider the removal of Linux as necessary for the continued security of the PlayStation platform. Sony failed to keep the Linux portion of the software completely separate from the PlayStation portion of the system and therefore introduced holes through which hackers could get into the bowels of the system. Since Sony didn't take enough consideration into how they could keep the 2 separate, they had to take an extreme step and remove the feature all-together.

Or sharing 12 MP3 files on the internet with others!!! This makes it pretty obvious what governments think of your privacy and personal data, compared to companies who finance their public position...

I know some think the fine is low, but I think the real damage comes from how they have treated their customers. Lots of people don't like Sony because of their behavior. I used to spend thousands a year on Playstation related products, as well as TVs. They haven't received a penny from me now for the last two years. There is no chance a PS4 will be in my future. Root kits, failing to protect my personal information, removing features after purchasing a product, etc. are all reasons I am avoiding them, as well as many others. They are doing a fantastic job punishing themselves.

When you report on corporate fines and penalties, you should put them into proper perspective. In 2011, Sony earned about $86.65 billion dollars, so this fine comes to about a half an hour of income. For a median US worker making $14 an hour, that's a $7 fine. For a computer person making $100K a year, that might be about $25. In other words, this kind of fine might be annoying, but it isn't anything in the way of a serious penalty like one might get for littering or overtime parking.